Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 100

3 Things I Learned from Oprah

[Before we get to this actual blog post, lemme say again thanks to everyone who signed up for First Look Access, and received an early look at the Foolscap videos and The Authentic Swing. Thank you for your comments, for taking part in the bundle offer and for your “ask me anything” questions. The Authentic
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Furyk swings Authentic Swing, shoots 59

Does anyone beside me know who Jim Furyk is?
Jim Furyk is a 16-time winner on the PGA tour, the 2003 U.S. Open champion—and possessor of the single weirdest, loopiest, most homemade swing on the planet. As I write this on Saturday, September 14th, Jim Furyk has just become the sixth golfer in history to shoot
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The Evolution of This Blog

First lemme thank everybody who has signed up for FIRST LOOK ACCESS and is following the Foolscap videos (#1 last week, #2 this week) and the introduction of The Authentic Swing (all only available through FIRST LOOK ACCESS). Wow, what a sentence. Totally incomprehensible to anyone who is not a regular reader of this blog.
Thinking
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Getting Ready for the Bigs

It took me thirty years to get my first novel published. Along the way I wrote three other full-length novels (and about thirty screenplays), each of which took two years of full-time work and none of which made the cut. A few years ago I took those early book-attempts down from the shelf and looked
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Always Come Out of Another Hole

At about the 1:20 mark in Kevin Spacey’s MacTaggart Lecture, given during the Edinburgh International Television Festival, he looks straight into the audience and says, “It’s the Creatives, Stupid.”
It’s a television festival, so he keeps on the “television” theme, but that deeper thread is about change and taking risks.

When facing one of his first offers
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Foolscapping the B-52

There was a great article in the L.A. Times of August 19 about the B-52 bomber. Remember Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, straddling a hydrogen bomb in the bomb bay of a Strategic Air Command plane, then dropping into thin air while cutting loose a Rebel yell?
That was a B-52.
In real life the aircraft first saw
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Art and Polarity

As I knew I’d be deep in the North Woods of Maine with no phone access or Internet this week (Help!), I didn’t want to take a chance and not get a WIT up for this week.  So, back from last year (June 20, 2012), here’s “Art and Polarity,” which I find to be crucial
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Return of the Foolscap Method

My apologies to everyone who got psyched up, a few weeks ago, to learn more about the Foolscap Method (which I wrote about then in this space and promised to write about again), only to have me drop the ball completely. Sorry!
There’s a reason. We’ve been working feverishly over the past few weeks to re-jigger
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Bob Dylan Revisited

Because something is happening here.
But you don’t know what it is.
Do you, Mr. Jones?
—Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan has a Twitter account, but I’m about as certain as death and taxes that it isn’t him banging out tweets on a keyboard.
Under 400 tweets, it’s a short stream of concert updates and other announcements.
To the point. Nothing
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The 10,000 Hour Rule

This post first ran November 9, 2011. We’re revisiting it today as I approach another deadline and am reminded of those 10,000 hours.
I’m not sure whether Malcolm Gladwell was the first to identify this principle or was simply responsible for popularizing it. But his name is definitely associated with it.
The rule says that in order for
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